Addicted to Pajarito Mountain

Another day, another explore...such a hard life!  I got a late start - 11:40 am from the parking lot.  There was a mix of dark clouds, white clouds and blue sky.  Someone in the parking lot told me I was going to get wet.  It did rain but not very hard and there was no lightning and then it stopped.  I started up the Zero Road East from the Lodge and took a right at the side road near Boomer. 

I went up the side road to where it intersected the Zero Road East higher up and then walked that for a short distance to another side road, turning right and then followed that to an intersection where yesterday I turned right but today I went left instead.

Truthfully, I don't know how much of this road system I'm learning because I wander here and there, back and forth.  If I keep at it, I should eventually gain some familiarity.

I saw two deer bucks that bounded off diagonally down a ski slope when they heard me.  I've seen a number of bucks on Pajarito, including a human one who didn't see me and was almost ready to unzip his fly until I made noises to warn him off!!

I was enchanted by a tall thistle with fading yellow flowers, laden with orange and black fritillary butterflies.  There was even a bumblebee on it.

I saw two felsenmeers, one near Aspen Lift that I walked across - they actually lop off the young trees and use it as a ski run.  Wouldn't the warning signs about obstacles, natural and man-made, be more truthful if they told skiers that huge rocks lay under the snow?

This reminds me that I saw the other day a tree with a plaque on it saying the tree belongs to Joel Prichard, who died in December 2000, and it thanks all who tried to save him.  Sad.

I got up to Bruce's Blvd. West and saw all the connections it makes to the back of the mountain.  The snow-making puddle is as ugly as ever and still unfilled.

I started to follow the Logging Road down the west side of the mountain but since the weather was still holding, I got waylaid by yet another side road that eventually went back to the Logging Road.

I got back to the car at 2:23 pm. and did a little over 4 miles.  The sky was dark and cloudy and occasional thunder-rumbles could be heard - the second shift was coming!  Back home, though, it never rained.

Pajarito is a very rocky mountain.  That can be seen on all the road surfaces and the felsenmeers.  Really, rather than being like an isolated, towering peak, it's more like a long, east-west ridge with a couple of over 10,000' bumps on it. 

I'm beginning to recognize which ski lift is which - Lone Spruce and Mother are both blue and two seaters.  Aspen is black and a 4 seater. I need to check out Townsight but haven't made it over there lately.